Friday, April 7, 2017

Next Phase Against The Islamic State Cutting Its Finances, Interview With RAND’s Patrick Johnston

The Islamic State is on its way to being defeated in the
Battle of Mosul. Afterward it is likely to lose its remaining territory in
Iraq. It is already transitioning back to an insurgency however. To finally
stamp out the group its funding needs to be cut off. That can’t be done on the
battlefield however, but through intelligence and law enforcement. Recently the
RAND Corporation published a report on the group’s finances entitled “Financial Futures
of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.” To talk about the next step
against the Islamic State is one of the paper’s authors Patrick Johnston. He
can be followed on Twitter @JOHNSTON.

1. The Islamic State
still holds oil fields in Syria, but has lost control of all of the ones it had
in Iraq. What will the organization turn to earn money and fund itself in Iraq?

The Islamic State is likely to manage to retain a modest,
clandestine presence in and around cities that have been declared “liberated”
by Coalition and Iraqi forces. As long as institutions are weak and corruption
is rife, preventing IS from making money off of extortion schemes will be
difficult. Also, reconstruction efforts tend to generate a lot of contracting
opportunities that groups like IS can subvert through intimidation and fraud.
In research I conducted with colleagues at RAND on IS’s predecessor, the
Islamic State of Iraq, for example, we analyzed financial ledgers captured from
the group in 2009 in Mosul—another period in which the group had been degraded
militarily. The ledgers showed that ISI still managed to generate substantial
income by extorting companies, contractors, and the like. If the past is
prologue, reconstruction aid to Mosul and elsewhere will need to be monitored
closely to prevent leakage—including into IS coffers.

In addition, as IS retreats into desert areas, the group may
be able to gain revenue either through taxing smugglers and informal traders or
by engaging in smuggling activity directly.

2. The RAND report
you were involved in said that as the Islamic State loses territory measures
against the group would shift from military action to law enforcement. How so?

IS generates almost all of its revenue from the territory in
which it operates rather than through donations, such as those from wealthy
sympathizers in other countries.Assuming the group continues to lose territory and increases the extent
to which it operates clandestinely, dealing with it—particularly its
financing—will primarily become a law enforcement issue. Just like if you
wanted to dismantle the mafia here in the United States, you would task the FBI
instead of the U.S. Army, if you want to counter IS’s ability to profit from
criminal activities, a similar logic should apply in Iraq.

3. Are the Iraqis up
to the task of making this transition to using the police and intelligence
agencies against the Islamic State after it is defeated on the battlefield?

Good question. There certainly has been a greater focus on
building Iraqi military capacity in the counter-IS campaign than there has been
on law enforcement and intelligence. Iraq’s law enforcement and intelligence
agencies suffer from some of the same problems that hinder capacity building in
other parts of the government of Iraq—sectarianism, corruption, and political
schisms. Few analysts are under the illusion that these challenges will
completely disappear anytime soon. But failing to build more effective
institutions, particularly for law enforcement, threatens to leave behind the
kind of “seam” in Iraqi society that IS successfully exploited during its
revival in Iraq and would happily do so again.On the plus side, the coalition is training
Iraqi police. In addition, the performance of the federal police in the
Mosul operation is reported to be strong. The Iraqi government now has a better
idea of what it will need to do to maintain the support of the population.
Whether it will actually implement the necessary policing actions and build the
trust of the population is to be seen.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com